


Make it easy

by supcl4ra (klari19)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bullying, Dyslexia, Dyslexic Bokuto, Kid Fic, M/M, Younger characters, homophobic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5810077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klari19/pseuds/supcl4ra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There are only a handful of things I truly understand in life, and I’m glad Akaashi is one of them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make it easy

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea running around in my head for a while, and only today did I have the muse to write it. I'm happy about how it came out, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!  
> As a precaution, I feel the need to state that Bokuto and Akaashi are supposed to be around 9 and 8, respectivelly, in this. I know some people are uncomfortable reading fics that involve any kind of romantic elements between kids, so... think about it if you want to read.  
> Also, [suggested listening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAt1m1lQK3w).

The... characters (that’s what I’ve been told they are) on the paper are blurry and strange and they make my head hurt. I don’t understand them. What am I supposed to grasp from all these jumbled up lines? Only my teacher knows.

It makes me sad and angry and frustrated. And when my classmates tell me I’m not trying hard enough, that I’m lazy, that I should have learned how to read properly it makes me angry and I yell at them, hot tears streaming down my cheeks, a painful fire burning inside my chest. And they laugh at me, say I’m a crybaby and a little clown that’s only looking for attention.

My teacher is very kind and understanding; she gives me small books for me to try to read during recess, but _I can’t do it I’m sorry_ , and I sit on the far end of the playground and pick herbs from the ground, watch the clouds go by as the soft wind blows, and hear the birds sing. I’m happy. Touching things – the grass, the dirt, the leaves – makes me happy, because I can feel them and understand them fully.

I brought the book with me because my teacher made me promise to try, _Just one sentence, please_ , so I put it in my lap and open it… But nothing makes sense. It’s all black over white, an indefinite mess of straight and curved lines and some random dots here and there and it doesn’t make sense. There are images, but if I can’t understand what the text says, how can I understand how the images are related to it? If it’s not something I can touch, how does anyone want me to understand it? I don’t know.

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

I rest my forehead onto the book and breathe. I’m sitting underneath a tall tree, and its shadow is big and wide and I feel comfortable underneath it. It feels so good… but soon I can sense someone walking towards me. My body goes stiff and I await the crude comments – but they never come.

“Sorry um…” A soft voice, it seems hesitant to rise up higher than a mere whisper. “You’re holding your book upside down.”

I straighten up with a sigh – so that’s why I couldn’t even understand the pictures – and look at the newcomer. He’s a young boy, about my age or maybe younger, I don’t know, he’s got fair, rosy skin and dark brown wavy hair. He has a gentle expression on his face, and he reminds me of my owl plushie: very soft and also kind of cute in his own way. For some reason, I smile at him. And when he smiles back at me, warmth blooms inside my chest.

He sits beside me and places the book correctly on my lap. “Do you want me… to help you?” He asks in the softest, gentlest tone anyone has ever used when speaking to me – except for my parents and my teacher. I nod, and he nods too. That makes me chuckle a little bit.

He points his finger onto the paper and explains everything to me. “This character here means joy. And this one here means lion. The whole sentence means that the protagonist is happy to see the lion. And you can see that on the im—”

“What’s your name?” I got lost in his explanation and didn’t realize I was speaking out loud until he turned to look at me, a smile on his small lips. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine. My name is Akaashi Keiji. What’s yours?”

Akaashi doesn’t seem upset at all that I interrupted him, and that’s strange and amazing at the same time. He’s – if only I could find the right words to describe him…

“I’m Bokuto Koutarou.” I reply, then I look down at the book, embarrassed. “Can you please… start over?”

I hear a small chuckle beside me, and I sense Akaashi leaning closer to me. “Of course.” Our knees bump, but none of us makes a move to take them apart. And that makes me happy.

I try to listen to Akaashi’s explanation, but I have to ask him to repeat certain parts many times over, and he always has a smile on his face when I do. It’s not an angry smile, a fake smile… It’s an honest smile and I like how it looks. I wish I could find better words to describe it.

When we’re called to go back into our classrooms, it makes me sad. I want to keep listening to Akaashi’s voice, I want to try to understand the black stripes and dots as he explains them to me…

“Will you come read with me tomorrow during recess too?” I ask.

His eyes light up as I say that, and he nods frantically. I don’t know why he’s so happy but I’m happy too. I want to hug him, and I do. He hugs me back and chuckles. We say goodbye and part ways to go to our classrooms.

 

***  *  ***

 

Akaashi is already sitting underneath the tree when I run to it the day after. I plop down on the soft grass next to him and hug him tight because I just want to. “Thank you.” I say and he giggles softly.

“Did you bring your book?” He asks me when I lean away from him.

I look down at my hands and realize that they’re empty and that makes me incredibly sad all of a sudden. I can’t help the tears burning in the corners of my eyes as press my head between my knees, ashamed of myself.

“Bokuto, it’s okay. Look, I have a notebook with me. I can write characters for you.” Akaashi’s voice is as soft as his hand on my shoulder.

I look back at him and he’s smiling so beautifully, so I rub the tears off my face and try to smile back to him. He puts his notebook on his knees and opens it. With his pen in hand, he starts tracing delicate lines on the blank page and I try to follow each movement of his hand, my eyes blown wide in amazement. He tells me that a single character can be read differently and I ask him why everything is so complicated. He lowers his eyes and his shoulders droop.

“I’m sorry.” I say. I don’t know why, but I feel like I have to apologize.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” He whispers, and he looks back up at me. “I’ll try to make it less complicated for you.” There’s a spark of determination in his eyes.

 

***  *  ***

 

Akaashi is beautiful and gentle and kind. Every time he smiles at me I feel something inside me and it’s good and I like it and I wonder if he feels it too. I should ask him but I don’t know how.

 

***  *  ***

 

“Akaashi how do you write your name?” I ask him one day.

He was writing something for me, but he looked up to see me when he heard my voice. He smiles and takes my hand. He puts the pen between my fingers and closes his hand around mine. He guides me, his palm warm against my skin, a smile on his lips. I try to focus on the order of the lines, but I think I missed one or two… Or more. Nonetheless…

“It’s beautiful.” I whisper, and he chuckles.

“It means ‘Red-footed’, and it’s a reference to the name of an owl, so I don’t find it particularly beautiful…” He says as he releases my hand.

“But owls are beautiful! And you’re beautiful too!” I exclaim, then gasp and quickly shut my mouth with my hands.

Embarrassed, we both look away, then, as if we had a signal, we start laughing together.

When have to go back to our classrooms I hug Akaashi as I always do, but a little longer this time, I don’t know why, but it feels good and warm and nice.

When I enter my classroom some kid yells _Bokuto is in love with Akaashi!_ and I scream and sob and kick whatever I can find close to me – desks, trash bins, people – because he said it to mock me and that makes me angry, until the social worker comes looking for me.

She sits me in her room and tries talking to me. I don’t listen to her and I don’t answer to her questions. I’m angry and sad and I just want to be with Akaashi but I know she wouldn’t understand that, as I don’t understand why I don’t understand anything. Because everything is too complicated and only Akaashi makes things easy and simple for me. But no one understands that.

The social worker isn’t mad at me, but she tells me I have to let out whatever I have inside in words and not in punches and kicks and shouts because that’s not right. That’s the only thing I registered from her. And, somehow, I understood it. Partially, but I managed to grasp something from those words of her.

 

***  *  ***

 

I'm beaming when I see what Akaashi brought for me the next day. Three boxes, each one of them containing cards with various different types of characters – Akaashi told me one box contains hiragana, the other katakana, and the last one kanji. I don’t quite understand the difference between all of them, but I know that they’re all beautiful and I’m happy that Akaashi brought them for me.

“The most usual thing is to use hiragana and kanji to make sentences.” Akaashi says, searching through the cards from the box which he told me reads _kanji_ on the label. “Sometimes you need katakana, but not always, because that’s just for words from other countries.”

I wonder why we need different characters for words from other countries, I wonder why we even need words from other countries if we have our own words in our country. But I don’t ask him, I’m amazed at the amount of cards there are in the boxes.

“Here.” He says at last, looking at me with a bright smile and pointing to two cards he has laid in front of him on the grass.

友達 _(tomodachi)_

“What does it say?” I ask. Those ones are a little complicated, and I know I’m not seeing all the lines I should be seeing, so I need to ask for confirmation.

“It means ‘friend’.” He says and smiles at me.

His smile and so beautiful and pure and I feel like it’s the only thing I can really understand and I don’t know how to tell him, so I start digging into the boxes, choosing my cards very carefully and placing them on my lap for the time being. I only chose hiragana because they’re easier to understand for me, which means they’ll be even easier to understand for Akaashi. One, two, three, four, five… I place the characters as I think I’ve heard them being said. I can’t remember where I heard them, but I know they are important and that’s all that matters because Akaashi is important to me and I need him to understand that.

あしいてる _(phonetically: a shi i te ru)_

When I’m done I look at Akaashi, a big smile spread onto my lips, and wait for his approval. He covers his mouth behind his hand, chuckling softly with his eyes closed. I can see pink on his cheeks and for some reason that makes my own cheeks feel warm.

Akaashi takes the box with the label _kanji_ and rummages through it for a while. When he’s found the card he’s looking for, he places it beside my combination and rearranges these last ones slightly.

愛してる _(aishiteru)_

I take the new card into my hands and bring it closer to my face, squinting while I look at it. The lines dance in front of my eyes, and I can’t really make out what they mean because there are too many and I look at Akaashi in distress.

“That’s the kanji for ‘love’.” He says simply, his head hanging a little low, as if he were embarrassed. “It’s what you wanted to write, didn’t you? ‘I love you’?”

I’m so happy because he understood and that’s incredible and I can’t help but throw myself into Akaashi’s arms because, yes—

“I love you, Akaashi.” I murmur into his hair, my eyes closed.

Akaashi’s arms are around me too, and it feels good and I never want to let go. I don’t care what anybody says, I’m going to hug Akaashi and tell him through words what he’s worth for me and no one will be able to fight me on that. Ever.

“I love you too, Bokuto.” Akaashi whispers softly.

There are only a handful of things I truly understand in life, and I’m glad Akaashi is one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> join me in bokuaka hell at supcl4ra.tumblr.com ;u;
> 
> Announcement: URL has changed to kuroosthighz!!


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